I was getting some paperwork done at the Cairo Press Center and on my way out I noticed there were roughly 100 people demonstrating on the ground floor. Given the fact that major protests took place here in January, the building is one of the most heavily guarded in the city—encrusted in barbed wire, with soldiers lining the corridors and perched in .50 caliber machine gun nests. The demonstrators must have been employees if they managed to access the atrium, and they were just chanting quite peacefully. Right as I walked out the door 50 soldiers toting billy clubs and submachine guns stormed the building.
I seem to remember some news commentators remarking that Egyptians are in love with their army, and that relations between citizens and officers are excellent. From my limited experience this does not seem to be the case. The military here is as repressive as anywhere else. The junta issues pleas that urge demonstrators to go home in order to show their love for Egypt, and they subvert rallies at Tahrir by claiming there are agents at work who wish to undermine the special relationship between the people and the armed forces. The people, the real people that is, are not fooled. They do not allow government officials or the military near Tahrir. Many Egyptians learned this lesson in the Ministry of Interior, across the street from where I am living. As perhaps the most fortified building in Cairo its armed sentinels radiate for blocks. Home of the secret police, this is where women were recently abducted from Midan Tahrir and virginity-tested. Among the cluster of state ministries it is the tallest—together they form a glittering multiplex dedicated to the wonders of US-sponsored militarism “in which massacre is only an administrative detail.” They are ringed to the south by hotels in the form of 5-star Western-style paeans to rampant capitalism. I thought of Chalmers Johnson:
As late as 1874, well after the Civil War, our country’s standing army had an authorized strength of only 16,000 soldiers, and the military was considerably less important to most Americans than, say, the post office. In those days, an American did not need a passport or governmental permission to travel abroad. When immigrants arrived they were tested only for infectious diseases and did not have to report to anyone. No drugs were prohibited. Tariffs were the main source of revenue for the federal government; there was no income tax.
A century and a quarter later the U.S. Army has 480,000 members, the navy 375,000, the air force 359,000, and the marines 175,000, for a total of 1,389,000 men and women on active duty. The payroll for these uniformed personnel in 2003 was $27.1 billion for the active army, $22 billion each for the navy and the air force, and $8.6 billion for the marines. Today, the federal government can tap into and listen to all citizens’ phone calls, faxes, and e-mail transmissions if it chooses to. It has begun to incarcerate native-born and naturalized citizens as well as immigrants and travelers in military prisons without bringing charges against them. The president alone decides who is an ‘illegal belligerent,’ a term the Bush administration introduced, and there is no appeal from his decision. Much of the defense budget and all intelligence agency budgets are secret. These are all signs of militarism and of the creation of the national security state.
Prompted by politicians and CEO’s, myths of civilian/soldier camaraderie run rampant in our post-modern society, predictably culminating in the United States. The panegyrical debate in American politics alternates between portrayals of soldiers as the first line of defense against anti-Western Islamists and lamentations for broken heroes who are taken advantage of by their commanders. The first camp voraciously foams at the mouth for the blood of brown people. The second camp taps the brakes on an all-out assault on human life and entreats us to support the troops, bring them home. At first glance this seems like a quite reasonable place to begin the debate. We know that recruits undergo a thorough psychological battering in boot camp and as part of this conditioning split-second reactions are instilled in their subconscious. However it seems as soon as they graduate from training and enter active duty the discourse strips them of all agency.
Remarkably, the support the troops proposal is a far more hegemonic imposition. At least the right-wingers evoke a patriotic mythology that the soldier is fulfilling. On the other hand liberal reformists are outright dismissive—they do not approve of the conflict but they entreat the recruits to obey the authoritarian command structure. Blind to the realities of warfare, reformists only stipulate that atrocities halt on their command. This poses a dilemma: are we merely calling for a withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq because of our inability to achieve our goals humanely without rupturing the police state’s integrity? I hope not. I would like to think opposition to the conflicts is premised on the fact that belligerent war is the supreme regressive force, on the fact that it is wrong to interfere with a society that has not predicated its existence on harming us.
If Americans are to oppose war it must be understood that as taxpayers our complicity is double—we send troops bearing our colors into battle and we meretriciously urge them to adhere to the dictates of their superiors. The support the troops argument only addresses the former and in doing so subverts true anti-war efforts. It relives the troops of their moral commitments but then punishes them for exceeding their mandate, which is not a pure one in the first place (here I am thinking of Abu Gharib and kill squads). Right-wingers assume soldiers are exercising their own morals; support the troops wants soldiers to yield to the liberal reformists’ morals, which are frankly suspect.
When I was in the occupied West Bank I found myself face to face with troops carrying out their duties, which involved physically repressing nonviolent demonstrations. Oddly enough I met a few American citizens wearing the Star of David on their shoulders. As young adults in their 20’s they were fully caoable of acting on their own, something that would surprise American liberal reformists. The IDF punishes failure to carry out orders with prison sentences among other measures. Yet I never once witnessed a soldier choose to be court-martialed instead of beating defenseless civilians or blocking sick children and pregnant women from reaching a hospital. This is telling: given the chance (and there were many given) between committing a malum prohibitum act—one that is prohibited by the state—and committing a malum in se act—one that is morally wrong—they chose the latter every time. It’s a similar situation in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan (and now Libya and soon who knows where else). Support the troops insidiously shames refuseniks by failing to shame their comrades who chose to go on carrying out imperial aggression. If we wish to end American bellicosity it has to be through disrupting the military’s despotic hierarchy. At the end of the day soldiers are a physical manifestation of the state’s power. They are the ones who arrest civilians, bulldoze houses, deliver ordinance, fire into crowds. Unanimously told to act inhumanely during combat, they come home and turn into adrenaline junkies and drug addicts in order to forget. Truly seeking an end to American warmongering begins and ends with creating an environment that welcomes those who refuse to blindly obey. Paradoxically, this is the converse of support the troops.
